Agreed.

Why does Paulo tweet helpful stuff, but on ST he only demeans people?
Maybe he will make a New Year's resolution to be a better ST citizen!?

>Working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true.

I challenge this. A lot of people work on fitness without any improvement in technique, and it is possible to work on technique while improving fitness. (For example doing 1:20 100's with the "fist" drill to work on feeling the drag through the forearm)

Do some people place a misguided emphasis on technique as a backdoor way of avoiding the hard reality of hard hours in the pool? Sure.

Swimming in December? No thanks. Pretty big waste of time for most folks...

Yes, just as many will use variations of this excuse to avoid volume and/or intensity on the bike or run.

So as a noobie swimmer, I'll play the DNG card (Dumb New Guy) and ask how working on fitness works on technique.

If I have a cr@ppy technique, it seems I can improve my overall swim fitness and still have the same cr@ppy technique. Yes, I have become a "better swimmer" because my fitness has improved, but my technique still sucks.

Or to put it in bike terms, I can have a terrible position on the bike (i.e. my "technique") and still become a better cyclist through training. But if I improve my position AND my fitness, I can realize much larger gains, no?

Or is Paulo's position that my technique will improve automatically simply by swimming more...i.e. a prolonged "trial & error" process? If so, why not fast forward and have someone help with your technique?

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That's very true. Swimming is complicated because you can't implement good technique without good fitness. On the other hand swimming is "unnatural" enough for us that not everyone can figure out the right technique by just working on their swim fitness so it can sometimes be a bit of a catch 22 situation.

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"Working on your fitness works on technique."
Uh, not really. Actually, it is false.

Just swimming more is definitely not going to have very much of an impact on improving technique. Actually, it can (and often does) have exactly the opposite effect. Just "working on your (swim) fitness" alone readily reinforces bad technique, as you will be repeatedly practicing (1000s and 1000s of times) incorrect and inefficient movement.

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So you are confident enough in this, to say that it is false, despite Brett Sutton and Paulo saying it is true?

hmmm

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PLEASE don't put that Paulo guy in the same sentence as Brett Sutton. It's offensive to Brett!!!

I would contend that it is right.

If you've done your due diligence to get your stroke "good enough", by simply improving fitness and utilizing some "toys" your body will gradually improve it's technique.

This statement is like anything else, it assumes you've done some reasonable background work to get "good enough"...

To make another parallel, I see this all the time on the driving range. Guys with gawd-awful horrific swings that are just beating the ground into submission. They make no changes to their swings, no attempts to "fix" their flaws and are basically trying to make their awful swing work for them by forcing themselves to work around their problems (which is horribly unreliable).

Guys just beating a bucket of balls on the range are looking to have their volume (i.e. fitness) replace their technique. It usually doesn't work because they are ingraining very poor mechanics.

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That is a big qualifier that is not present in Paulo's tweet, though.

Maybe he just ran out of characters?

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No, that's just working on (bad) technique. Your analogy is TERRIBLE.

I place that qualifier before everything I read about training, you'd be a fool not to.

Edit to add: For example, one rule of thumb says you should ride an Ironman at 73% of FTP. Well if you haven't trained appropriately to ride that hard, boom goes the dynamite.

I think part of the explanation is that swimming and it's movement patterns are so specific that it's very hard to maintain technique improvements for any length of time unless you have some swim fitness to start with.

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You bet. If you carefully you read my post above, yes, I am very confident in my statements because I've seen it personally more times than I can count. Why a so-called experienced tri coach would say the opposite baffles me. But, in any case, I am good with sticking my neck out and saying the emperor has no clothes.

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I think the "assuming your technique is good enough" qualifier is missing from paulo and brett's technique because it just isn't in their worldview.

They may never run into those 2:00+ per hundred people that really just need to learn how to swim before they proceed.

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Perhaps because you haven't seen people really work that hard? I mean like 30k meters a week swimming in a fast lane where you are forced to really really push yourself all the time. Maybe that is where you start to self discover technique?

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Really? Funny 'cuz working on (bad) technique was exactly my point.

Huh....

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Golf has no comparsion to swimming. If you are a better swimming than someone who needs a noodle to complete a swim than you are going to get faster by swimming harder and using the tools (paddles, bouy, bands) that can help reinforce good technique rather then spending the same amount of time doing drills. I've gone both routes. Hard work is always the answer. You can always incorporate adjustments to improve your technique but that is just the supplement to time and work.

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Nope.

You know what happens when you swim 30,000 m per week with poor technique? Most of time, you get worse technique.

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First of all, I am not saying "just do drills" nor am I saying don't use "toys". But if you have fundamental flaws in your stroke, simply going for volume doesn't seem like it will fix these issues, unless as I said you end up improving through "trial & error". If that is the case, it seems horribly inefficient.

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I would think you might also get a shoulder injury.

You got it.

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Its really simple. Join a masters, swim 20k+ a week pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and listen to any comments from the coach on deck and make necessary adjustments as needed during the sessions. Day in day out. You'll get faster.

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Agreed. But that isn't the same as saying "Fitness improves technique." In the example above, you have a coach giving you comments on your technique, in addition to substantially increasing your volume. The two go hand in hand. If I get in the pool and just splash around for 20K a week by myself, that doesn't mean I am going to improve my technique, does it?

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It is interesting that you, of all people, would buy into this. A perfect analogy to the swimming dilemma is a cyclist who thinks more training and a "bigger engine" is what it takes to overcome crappy aerodynamics of your equipment or position. Sure, a bigger engine will help. But someone with less fitness and a smaller engine can still come and kick your ass if they know exactly what they are doing with regard to proper positioning and proper bike equip.

In the end, of course, both are important, fitness and technique. But just more fitness won't get you the technique improvements you need. Nor will drills, nor will 99% of swim toys.

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You sure talk a lot for someone that is doing 2min/100m.

Hard work is the only way for most of us who didn't grow up swimming. It took me months of swimming up to 8000 on some days to drop my times down ten seconds per 100. I'm still not a natural swimmer, but I'm relatively fast for a non-swimmer triathlete. And not all of that was intensity. A lot of it was purely aerobic work in Zones 2 and 3. If you look at what some top distance swimming coaches are recommending for beginning distance swimmers, it is for them to swim 4-5k per main set with technique and sprint work supplementing the swimming. Why, because the philosophy is that moderately intense aerobic work improves fitness while smoothing out technique and developing the endurance needed to swim fast at comfortable RPE. Once that base is established, hard work must be incorporated to hone in on pacing. Why don't some people on this forum go read something written by the best coaches in the world?

I agree I just think the focus should be on the hard work and volume over just drilling technique. The paddles/bouy/band combo really do help force good form and allow you to work much harder while improving technique at the same time rather then just countless drills. For me it comes down to what my goals are. I'm not a pure swimmer competeting in a pool. I'm racing triathlon in open water where perfect form is sometimes difficult to maintain so fitness and a big engine are going to serve me better then having a perfect glide.

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What talking? I'm asking questions......All I'm doing is trying to understand different training philosophies so I can improve.

Concraps....your d*ck is bigger than mine. You win!! Feel better now?

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I think it's interesting that every time someone gives advice like this, everyone assumes that the prescription is simply "volume." It isn't. It's APPROPRIATE volume.

And yes, to reference Sentania, there is some basic level of ability that is required. I.e., if your best 100m for time is, let's say, slower than 2:00/100yds, then you simply need to learn how to swim. In other words, if you really, fundamentally, cannot swim, then - duh - don't get in and try and bang out big volume. Get some basic swim instruction. There's a difference between fundamentals and "technique work." If you truly lack the fundamentals then you need them.

I'll explain, simply, for the people who fail to grasp the nuances by way of example.

If you are able to swim 200yds at a speed that you would be VERY happy being able to swim for 2000yds, the way to get there is NOT by doing drills. It is by working on your fitness. Most often, the "technique problems" that occur going from 200->2000 are that people lack the fitness to hold their stroke together. So in that sense, as you work on fitness, you work on technique, because you limit how much your stroke breaks down.

Simply put, the ability of people to simply *maintain* their stroke - a lack of fitness - is a MUCH more significant limiter than any dramatic technique flaw. Even at the highest level, triathlon swimming is not particular fast. For example, an hour swim for Ironman is pretty fast. An hour swim for 3800m means you are going more than 50% slower than the speed of a world class OW swimmer. Think about that.

Ironically, no one seems to miss this connection with running. Very few people waste as much time doing running drills as they do with swimming drills. Nobody - well, very few people - think that drills are the key to a ~3hr Ironman marathon (also 50% slower than elite level). But plenty of people seem to think they can drill their way to a ~1hr IM swim...

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OK, I see where you are coming from...so would this be a fair synopsis? By using various tools when swimming (paddles, buoys, etc) you can train both endurance / fitness AND technique?

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Translated since everyone seems to think that it's a statement about only learning better technique.

You can have perfect technique, but if your fitness sucks, you will fall apart after a few hundred meters due to fatigue. The better your fitness is, the easier it is to work on the technique and improve it. So, enhancing your fitness enhances your ability to work on your technique. The opposite is not necessarily true. So, even if your technique is horrible, get to the point where you can swim adequately enough that you are not fighting the fatigue at the same time you are fighting the learning curve of getting better technique.

John

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You're not fooling me.

The best synopsis would be to read what Rappstar just wrote. Pretty much sums it up.

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Actually, golf does have an analogy to swimming. In this case, it would be this:

imagine a golfer whose game is suffering because he tends to miss a lot of putts and slice a lot of drives whenever he walks 18 instead of taking the cart. The suggestion, according to most people here, is that he ought to spend a lot of time focusing on his technique to really hone in his swing so it is absolutely ingrained and doesn't abandon him.

The more obvious - and correct - prescription is to get said gentleman to get his fat ass off the couch, maybe hit the treadmill, spend less time at the 19th hole, etc. What's funny is that this isn't just a hypothetical. This is exactly what happened when Tiger Woods started kicking the shit out of everyone. Golfers started to realize that fitness was an important part of the game. They couldn't simply finesse their way to longer drives and lower scores. They needed to be fitter. And, in that exact same scenario, working on fitness worked on their technique, because on the fourth day of tournament play, they were driving just as far, their strokes were just as solid, etc.

Where the analogy starts to break down is that - for AG golfers - taking ~100 swings once a week, fatigue isn't likely to be a major issue. For the typical AG swimmer, the fatigue difference between swimming 50yds and 5000yds is massive.

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Speaking from recent experience, the fatigue difference between 3000 yds and 5000 yds is massive, the difference 50 and 5000 is just plain rediculous.

This is becoming highly muddled.

What you are saying above is that if you want to swim faster for longer (i.e., get more endurance) you need to swim more?
Well, of course, yes.

But that, even if you swim faster than 2 min per 100, that swimming more yards per week will alone improve your technique?
Nope. Or, if yes, not by any significant amount.

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swimming at all seems like a very bad idea. wouldnt it be better to work on the portion of triathlon that youre the worst at whether that be s/b/r or weight loss?

Agree with challenging this. Going to the pool and getting in 'junk miles' won't necessarily improve technique IMO. Individuals looking to improve in the pool need to aggressively pursue both.

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doing endless drills doesnt help technique.

focusing on one aspect of the stroke for over a hundred thousand yards > every drill ive ever seen a triathlete do.

It does. And here's why. Sometimes it's only when you become exhausted that you find the maximum efficiency. You may be one of those people with very poor body awareness and a very inactive subconscious who cannot improve through tens of thousands of repetitions. But most people do. I'm sure it's highly variable though from person to person based on factors unseen (wiring in the brain I guess).

Through mass volume I've improved running mechanics, my cycling pedal stroke, my power and speed in martial arts techniques and I'm pretty sure the same will be true regarding swimming as I put in the time.

To answer an earlier question, Paulo really doesn't tweet helpful stuff. 99% of his posts are Lavendar Room material. One of my to-do's is to declutter my Twitter feed, and his is one that's getting the axe.

I'll add another name to this argument....Gerry Rodrigues

I had a private lesson with Gerry about 3-4 months ago. I was expecting to get all this technical info on what I was doing wrong and how I could magically drop 10 secs/100 by improving my horrible technique.....(it's not that bad but you get the gist of what I was looking for.)

My advice after an hour of 1 on 1..."yup, you're good enough...just go swim lots"

Sure he identified some problems here and there....but the basic takeaway was just go swim.

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Please keep your comments to 140 characters or less.

I love it how people enjoy arguing about stuff like this. Analyze it, dissect it, debate it anyway you want to, but Paulo is absolutely accurate in his tweet. 100% on the spot.

RP

ST would have about 10 posts per day if people who didn't know anything or were slow, stopped posting.

I doesn't seem like you actually read the Brett Sutton blog. He's saying that most adult swimmers either don't swim enough or are already unable to truly adapt the technique changes that drills encourage. By utilizing paddles and a pull buoy you are forced to make these adaptations. Ie- you can get in and hammer away for an hour and get a lot more out of it than just working on technique (which you may or may not be doing correctly in the first place).
I know my problem in races is that my form erodes as the swim gets longer.

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Why do people always say this about Paulo's advice? "He's right, just trust whatever he says and stop thinking." Even if he is right, people want to know why. Without him actually expounding on his statements (which is rare), all we have is quibbling debates like this to help ourselves out.

Why is it so challenging for people to grasp that before you hammer out mega swim sets you SHOULD have a certain degree of competency. And if you don't have that competency you should learn it from a professional.

Did these same people also attempt to do interval bike sets on the open road before learning how to balance on a bike? That is basically what is being suggested.

If you are swimming a 2:00/100SCY - you need to learn how to swim. Perhaps that is harsh, but it is reality. If that is truly your top end sprinting speed...something is really truly wrong with your technique. Simply put you need a coach to help you make the appropriate adjustments. And those adjustments will be big.

Once you've reached level of competence and confidence in the water then you graduate to actual swimming. And at that point Paulo is 100% correct.

I did drills in highschool swimming. I didn't do them in college after the first 2-3 weeks of the season when we were all getting back into the swing of things or perhaps as an easy warm down set. I don't do them now. Some of the pansies I swim with like to do some 50's drill as part of the warm-up, I just swim them. I have rarely found them helpful.

What I did find helpful, even in college, was a coach standing over me with a kickboard in his hands screaming at me that if I continued to be lazy and drag my hips he was going to bash me. Which is why I always tell people...if you are a bad swimmer, go get an experienced coach. (not someone like me who just swam in college).

The other solution to dragging your hips is tying your feet together with no pull bouy. If there is no shallow end, you'll learn quick enough, or you'll sink to the bottom and die. buh-bye.

If your catch is bad, paddles will make sure you know it and you'll correct things pretty quick as well. Here's a tip...if the paddles feel like they are going to be ripped off your hand with every stroke...adjust your stroke.

Drills do not provide that level of feedback. Plain and simple.

So what Paulo said is right. It just assumes a certain level of competency.

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But that, even if you swim faster than 2 min per 100, that swimming more yards per week will alone improve your technique?
Nope. Or, if yes, not by any significant amount.[/quote]
This is obviously an argument that will go endlessly in circles and no one's mind is going to change. You've clearly drawn your line in the sand and you say you've based it off experience and what you've seen. I am in the extreme opposite camp and agree 100% with Paulo/Rappstar/Sutton. I was helping coach a tri club with a range of ability. When we went over video I felt like a broken record. They had a multitude of sins but what every one of them did wrong was their hand position on the catch as they slid their hands through the water. My masters team at the time split a long course pool with the UW swim team (prior to the fold of the program). My lane was immediately next to one of their lanes and I watched them swim with great interest. I also watched above water after workout. I have looked at video tape of many many swimmers and what was surprising to me was that they do the same things the beginners do. Many of them crossed over, there was straight arm recovery, bent arm, wide ranges of kicks and on and on. What they all did spectacularly well was their body position in the water and their catch. From my own experience, I can say that swimming 1:20 base feels different than 1:30 base. Swimming 1:10 base much different than 1:20. Swimming 1:00 base much different than 1:10. I've spent time at all of these levels without a single conscious thought to technique but just getting in and swimming more. Position improves, breathing improves, hand position improves. All things that we can try to replicate through drills and coaching but can't be sustained because we just simply don't have the strength to do it. As our strength and fitness improve, so does our technique. I spend most of my time bike racing now and I have no illusions that my slower base swimming time is not because of a deterioration in technique, but because I'm swimming about half the volume I used to swim.

Mmmm...no, it never was.


Forest. Trees. Think a little harder and re-read Rapp's statement.

John

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this is a perfect segue to my invitation, jordan, to join me on my intended birthday set: 55 x 100yd repeating on 1:30. should be a piece of cake for you. followed maybe by an MTB ride over the backbone if i do this down in the valley. i'm figuring out when/where to do it. right now i'm thinking santa clarita aquatics center, but, maybe closer to you. we'll see. sometime around the end of jan, beginning of feb.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Like with any sport, you've got to be conscious of what proper technique is, while swimming and developing fitness, a lot can be learned by knowing what should happen, even if you don't always do it yourself. Just repeating the same bad actions over and over again will not improve technique, but knowing what you do wrong and learning how to fix it, will ultimately end in "mastering" the skill. You've got to be ready to experiment and see "what happens if I do this". If I'm in the pool more, I will get better. If I move the interval from the 1:30 to the 1:25 your going to learn, but if you're uneducated in proper technique this goes nowhere. I could(and did previously) thrash all about in order to swim faster, what I learned was how to thrash, not how to swim. But after coach review, self education and the like I've learned rather then thrash to lengthen out my stroke, maybe raise my cadence, work on high elbow, or pulling all the way through the stroke. So now when a workout is tough I don't thrash but I focus on proper technique and that has ultimately lead to me being faster in the water.

The other part of his statement where he says "working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true." If I go and slow down my stroke in order to work on technique, I am not building fitness. I am building technique. While I do still do drills when swimming, they are not the highlight of my workout, rather a piece of the warmup, something that is added to get the yardage up. You will become faster with proper technique, that much is true. Just having a smooth technique though, does not make you an automatic top swimmer, that is fitness. A lot can be said for your bodies unconscious learning of something as well. The more you are in the pool the more you will learn.

Its really simple. Join a masters, swim 20k+ a week pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and listen to any comments from the coach on deck and make necessary adjustments as needed during the sessions. Day in day out. You'll get faster.

Exactly! and after doing that for a solid year and gaining 2-3 minutes in an IM, you will say, "... what a waste of time. I should have been biking..."

 

>Ironically, no one seems to miss this connection with running. Very few people waste as much time doing running drills as they do with swimming drills.

What's the irony? Most of us learn to use our legs for mobility at a very young age, and develop substantial technical proficiency in running. Thus running drills tend to pick at marginal benefits in technique (though certain Newton/barefoot-philes might disagree with me)

For both running, and swimming, though, I'd suggest that improvements in technique and fitness are a constant leapfrogging process, with each reinforcing the other. About 95% of my "technique" time is done in the middle of strenuous sets where I'm just mentally focusing on something without doing a "drill." Working on technique doesn't necessarily mean lollygagging back and forth.

The sutton article is not saying that technique in unimportant. It's saying that doing drills to develope technique is a waste of time. This whole argument is totally off track.
Sutton is advocating the use of "toys" to enforce these technique changes. The benefit is that you can still get in and hammer out a solid swim set while being forced to work on you catch with paddles or body position with the band.
This Tweet was based on the TeamTBB blog post. No one is saying you should just get in and thrash around for 4k and you'll be a top level swimmer.

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I thought it was a nice deflection as well.

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If we take what Sutton/Paulo/Rapp are saying and apply it to running, we get proficient at running, simply by running more. Most humans learned how to walk and run long before they became triathletes, so this makes sense. On the other hand, many triathletes perhaps have not graduated fromthe equivalent of walking to jogging to running from a swim "perspective". They need to learn how to swim first before improving their swim endurance...then everything that Sutton and Paulo are saying definitely applies.

Dev

I wasn't arguing, merely explaining.

Or in other words: Practice Makes Permanent.

To an extent, but with my running, moving from 30-35 miles/wk to 60+ the past two months, has made me more efficient as well as faster. My fitness has allowed me to stride as I'd like without breaking down.

Brent

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Slowman,

Don't you have an article somewhere about how minimum fitness is necessary for good technique? I don't know where to look for it, but wasn't it on the main page several years ago?

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salmon - not because I'm a fish

>...then everything that Sutton and Paulo are saying definitely applies.

Agree 100%. I just think that if they spent a few months teaching the "Prepare For Your First Sprint Triathlon" class at the local tri club, they might temper their broad generalizations about training efficacy. They're preaching to people similar to those they deal with on a daily basis, which are the top ~.01% to top 10% of triathletes.

This statement is a bunch of crap.

If you #1 fixed technique issues and then #2 swam 20k per week, you should be getting much more than 1-3 min out of the deal. Especially if you are starting at a 2:00/100 pace.

My first years in swimming in HS, I had never swam before. I started at the 500 and was swimming that in maybe 9 minutes at my BEST. (A bit faster than 2:00/100yds) By the end of that season...4.5 months, I was swimming it in 7:30's. Why? Technique and fitness. If I had only done drills I would not have been that fast.

I made the decision to swim year round after that seasono as I fell in love with swimming. By the time my sophomore year came (1 full year) around I was swimming 6:30's. At the end of that season I was below 6:00 and by the end of my senior year I was swimming 500's close to 5:00.

Do the math...after 1 year of being coached and swimming a fair amount (5x per week, 3-4k as I was slow) I dropped 3:30 in my 500yd swim. If I am doing my math correctly (1 mile = 1650) that is close to a 23 minute drop.

And while I do have a certain degree of natural talent when it comes to swimming, I am really...nothing special in the water. there are many, many people on this board that would put me to shame in the water.

I am not saying it is reasonable for people to expect a 20 minute drop in one year. Especially as an adult since it gets tougher. I was a kid when I saw that drop. But in all seriousness...if people would actually dedicate themselves to swimming. Get a coach that would watch and help them quite a bit at first, but then taper off as you improved and then actually swim on a consistent basis, there is no reason you can't see big improvements in the 10-20 minute range up front. If nothing else you'd become competent enough to add the yards and use the tools and see more improvements from there.

The people that flounder about in the pools never improving but doing drills all the time will never get better doing what they are doing. Of that there is little doubt. But actually taking the APPROPRIATE steps to improve can lead to some pretty significant gains pretty quickly. And those gains are the type that stay with you forever.

Lets not forget the overall triathlon improvement from coming out of the water that much earlier and getting in nutrition and fluids, etc.

Yeah, you may not be able to win the race in the swim...but you can very easily lose it.

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Admittedly, pithy little sayings like the one I repeated above never capture the whole truth. But I have also seen far too many slow runners with really bad form become faster runners with really bad form after training a lot. Your body can become much more efficient at any form. (Not saying this is you, just that form isn't the only limiter)

If there are folks out there doing 20K+ a week swimming plus what it takes on the bike and run to race a fast Ironman, well then hells bells, I will call them divorced/single and broke.

I swim 8 or 9K a week tops and swim 57mins in wetsuit. Double my time in the pool would get me what, an extra 2 minutes in the water? It's a triathlon; not a swim race.

IMO.

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@rhyspencer

Divorced/single/broke and fast. That said I definitely don't swim that much every week all year around. That's what it'll take for me to make a big jump in speed though. My swim needs some work so I'm doing a big block of swimming in the offseason that's 20-30k a week. Its a trade off of time spent on my bike though since I'm happy with my riding comparatively. Once I've (hopefully) made some gains I'll be back to swimming 10-12k a week during the season to maintain. Also, you already swim IM under an hour. I don't and need to put in more work to get there.

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I like to compare swimming to xc-skiing. If you stared young you will always have an advantage since both are technical and you need to feel/know what is correct. Also, you cannot expect to be good in either swimming or xc-skiing by just working on drills. Why? The first thing you will lose when you get tired is your form/technique.

Since both are technical you always have to work on keeping or improving your technique. But if your fitness is holding you back you need to work out. The fitness will help you to keep the form; good form will not help you to be fit.

If you have the best engine and the best technique you can do what Petter Northug is doing, increase the speed in the end of the race and still keep a good form J
This is how he builds fitness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg5fKfSuluw&feature=related

This is how he use the fitness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU1auIU_Epk

Some good video of Alistair Brownlee and swimming, he has fitness�
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t71f1QAmIl8

I think that you are wise to make a distinction between various level swimmers and what their "limiting factor" is, but I think that you might employ too narrow aview, like Coaches Sousa and Sutton, about what entails technique development, and more importantly, "proper technique". I wrote a much longer blog on this topic today (https://www.findingfreestyle.com/?q=hammertime), but the gist is as follows:

What Paulo and Brett Sutton both have in common, in my opinion, is that they rebel against the classical view of "proper technique". I understand this. When confronted with schools of instruction that put forth Michael Phelps freestyle stroke as the optimal, and then focus on drills that ingrain "long and strong", they correctly in my view, reject that line of reasoning for most open water endurance swimmers. For their rejection of this view of technique, however, they outwardly offer little antidote beyond the hammer (and a few toys), and thus throw the baby out with the bath water. To me, they imply that drills are either: a) irrelevant to the open water distance swimmer, or b) irrelevant for the purpose of enhancing an athletes condition. Let me be clear, for all athletes and to varying degrees, the hammer works: increasing training volumes CAN improve technique, and in some circumstances it IS just as simple as cranking out some more -- humans are ADAPTATION MACHINES, we do it very, very well. But we CAN optimize our adaptation with proper application of training technique.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that both coaches Sousa and Sutton would see effective hand-speed as a worthy technique, and one that can and should be trained in the context of a conditioning set. So, what aspects, besides hand speed and endurance can make someone successful in open water, and ALSO be part of a sucessful conditioning regimen? I would love to hear their thoughts on this, but for me and mine, it's:
- rhythm,
- free and plentiful air exchange,
- ability to sight,
- ability to turn the legs on and off at will,
- ability to change speeds as the race demands (if swimming in a pack especially).
- And above all, TIMING: The ability to synchronize the movement of the head, hands, arms, legs and torso (and breath).

Rejecting "technique work" as being synonymous with "do slow 25s while having your coach correct your stroke" is a limited view of training, conditioning, and skill development. It's also pretty darn low in terms of effectiveness. It absolutely, positively time that we got past having a classical, 100 meter freestyle-centric view of "proper techinque". But that's not all. It's also time that we stopped looking at "conditioning" and "technique" as two separate entities. They are inextricably linked and the best of us have always acknowledged that on a sub-conscious level. Perhaps it is time that we started to acknowledge it consciously.

Regards,
r.b.

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So you're telling me that you spent more time in the pool and your swim times got slower? Haha. Hahahaha. hahahahahahahaahahhhhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I went to take swimming lessons once and I was expecting to get all sorts of critique and methods to improve my poor technique. He first had me doing some laps to look at me in action. Then he sat me up on the deck and just started talking to me. Then he gave me the best advice I've ever received. "You're just not swimming enough." And then he put it into terms I could understand. Imagine if someone came to you and said "I'm running 20 miles a week and want to get faster. How can I get faster?"

I understand that swimming and running are different sports. And good technique is better than bad technique. But, the one facet that holds true in all three sports is there is rarely a substitute for volume.

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And that proves what? You're already at the pointier end of the stick.

John

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One thing I've been wondering is why include the pull buoy?

Wouldn't it be better to just use paddles?

Not so that you could work on kicking hard, but more so that you could work on timing the kick with the pull.

Maybe this depends on how good a swimmer you already are? Note I'm not talking about a really crappy swimmer, but someone who's a decent non-fish AGer.

I'll heartily disagree.....I can stay out of the water for a year and still beat 90% of triathletes in the water because it is a technique sport and technique trumps fitness/hours in the pool. I did IM CDA off of zero swim/bike training and still had a solid swim.....

Now for training - I'll also disagree and say that I think the opposite is more likely true. "Technique goes a long way in swimming and even trumps fitness. Working on your technique works on your fitness. The opposite is not true."

But then again - you're 3 steps above me as an athlete and Sousa is 3 steps above me as a coach (I'm not even one).....but I still disagree. Now maybe he is just trying to get people who work on technique 100% of the time to spend some time getting tired in the pool which is reasonable....but thrashing your way through 1000s of yards with bad technique is an inefficient way to improve in swimming in my opinion.

Dave

90% of triathletes shouldn't be in open water in the first place.

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I understand that swimming and running are different sports. And good technique is better than bad technique. But, the one facet that holds true in all three sports is there is rarely a substitute for volume.

Here's what happens to most new(er) triathletes these days. They track down a coach or down-load a training program online and they have these great little programs with 2 - 3 workouts/week in each sport - and off they go. It goes well at first because it's all new to them and if they don't have a back-ground in any of the sports they progress well from the get go. But they plateau fairly quickly and find it hard and challenging moving beyond that point. What they need to do is toss the three sport training out the window temporarily and look at single sport focus blocks. Why? - because, volume, when done right, really does take you to the next level. So for 2, 4, 6 months or more, be a swimmer, or a cyclist or a runner - do that sport every day or almost everyday each week. Throw in a couple of sessions of the other sports for maintenance and to keep an attachment.

Many think there is some mystery here, or secret training program, or special talent required. As Simon Whitfield says, "Chop wood & carry water" - the results will come with time. However, many give up before they get to that time! Hint, the time lines for real improvement and base building in endurance sports are much longer than people realize!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Do you think you could learn proper technique if you could not complete 1500m in total workout?

John

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I just went from a totally terrible swimmer (like 2:20/100) to mildly terrible (1:45 Tpace for 2000 now) over 2 years. Read everything on the forums here and BT, trained very hard for a newb (so hard that my shoulder strains were the limiting factor) and really focused hard on technique. Spent the entire first 6 months doing nothing but technique.

I gotta say, I agree 100% with Paulo's statement. Sure, it's oversimplified, but not by much.

I absolutely HATE now when coaches or ex-racing swimmers say 'it's all technique' and that noobs should be swimming 1:30s with zero swim fitness just with technique alone. That's a complete bunch of BS.

Went through multiple coaches as well - all of them said SWIM MORE. A LOT more. 12k/week is NOT a lot. Heck, even 20k per week isn't a lot for a good swimmer.

My limiter is definitely my swim volume - logistically just can't do much more than I'm doing now. But I 100% agree in that there is a significant swim fitness aspect to technique, and while the fitness alone won't get you great technique, you can't just have 1:10/100m technique without it. I would honestly say that as a newly learned swimmer with no swim background, once I was sub 2:00/100m, 95% of my speed gains were from swim fitness. This does not mean technique was meaningless - but the small changes in technique I picked up came as I notched that pace down.

I don't think true noobs who can't hit 2:00/100m all out should be doing fast work, but pretty much anyone under that mark should be doing it, I think.

I also agree with the earlier comment that once your body position is close to flat, unless you're a champion swimmer, it doesn't matter hugely what your stroke looks like. I watched a fast masters group for quite awhile that was in the same pool I was in (I came too late to join) and everyone had some really different strokes, including some that could easily be critciized as 'wrong' until you saw that sub 1:10 pace. The two commonalities I was most impressed with was the near-flat body position and arm turnover. Fast swimmer invariably had fast turnovers. In fact, their turnover is so fast that I'm pretty sure that if I had that kind of turnover, I'd be throwing down similar paces.

An overnight success takes 5 years, or is it 10?

Bingo.

Of course, to beat 99% of triathletes out of the water, you need both, great technique and great fitness.

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And that proves what? You're already at the pointier end of the stick.
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interesting, I never ever have thought that of myself ever. I suppose I should say thanks; so thanks! You have opened my eyes a bit in that, I am viewing this in a very narrow context of the quicker Ironman. I will call that quicker Ironman sub 11 hours lets say.

I still don't think doubling a person's commitment each week to the pool and thereby sacrificing time to the bike and run (ie: 3 to 4 hours a week) will pull through faster overall triathlon race times. The swim will get faster at the cost of the bike and run. I argue, do the minimum in the water to be relatively quick and allocate remaining hours to bike and run. Cycling takes A LOT of time. Fast cycling takes even more time. The ability to run well off the bike, takes even more time! Sure this applies to being a faster swimmer too, but what I am trying to convey is, there are only so many hours available for the AG athlete to commit and the equation is better suited to the bike for a faster day.

IMO.

My other opinion is, gadgets and 'breakthrough workouts' and 3 weeks on/1 week off protocols etc. etc. is all great. But it boils down to consistent DO IT, LOG IT, REPEAT IT. It is this philosophy to why I have so much respect for the likes of Paulo, Sutton, Filliol as coaches.

I don't mean to be negative, I hope that is not how I am being read here. I hope I am conveying the equation of return on investment of training time. That is all.

thanks.

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@rhyspencer

Nope, never said anything remotely similar to that.

I just said that, lots more swimming piled on top of bad technique will make for a very fit swimmer who won't be able to stay up with or beat swimmers with excellent technique who have worse fitness.

Even lance armstrong can't win a bike race (no matter how fit he is) with a big parachute hanging off the back of his bike. And that's what bad technique does to you in the water.

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Probably closer to 10....unless of course you add lots of technique to that fitness....and lots of fitness to your technique...

The pull buoy at least helps put you in a wetsuit like position...which is what A LOT of the swims are these days. It takes the worry of having your legs sink out of the equation so you can focus on the pull a bit more. And, if you have a horrible kick, then it helps keep your legs together because that is one of the big things that will slow down poor swimmers besides body position...legs going all over the place. You can even practice a small two beat kick with the pull buoy. It helps to have a smaller pull buoy or at least narrower. That is one of the best ways to synch the kick and pull. Spending a ton of time to get a great kick is usually a waste of improving whatever type of swim you already have.

And to the couple of swimmers who have said they've had a one on one session. The Mrs.-Tex has been a swim coach since 2000 or so...myself as well. 9 times out 10 when someone wants a lesson they expect to hear one or two things that will magically save 10 seconds per 100 as has been said. 9 times out of 10 they get told 'your stroke is not that bad'. That is my experience too when looking at swimmers. They just need to swim more and swim harder.

Swimming more is not sexy. Paying $100 for a 1 hour session or whatever is not sexy. Swimming alone sucks. You may not save 10 minutes on an Ironman swim, but I bet you'll save it on the whole race. Unfortunately, you can't quantify how much 'energy' you saved by swimming the same time going 'easier' than you did a year earlier.

The biggest problem is similar to what Robertwb mentioned. That is open water swimming is different. What happens when you and 2000 of your closest friends start swimming? What happens when you can't extend out in front of you bc of someone else? You lose that great stroke length that you have been drilling to perfection. You HAVE to finish your stroke. It matters, and a lot of pool coaches will tell you there's no reason to finish your stroke. Stroke length is great, but what you get is a slow as molasses stroke rate and a slow as molasses time. Using a pull buoy can help you learn to keep that stroke rate up so that you can change paces. There's a lot of great info here on this thread.

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Your logic is correct, but I think it's overstating reality quite a bit.

I've seen a lot of bad swimmers, but NONE of them are cranking out like 20k per week with lots of quality as would a good or serious swimmer. To think someone would do such a thing isn't realistic - anyone who's willing to train that hard on the swim is going to automatically pick up advice either on their own or through others to make significant stroke improvements so that they're not going to have god-awful form.

If anything, the bad swimmers I see don't push themselves hard enough, or ever. Lots of folks doing the easy 30-60 minute slow easy swim, only a few times per week. For these folks, a good kick in teh behind with hard painful intervals would wake them up quick to improving their form more than a coach would - when you're dying on every workout, the first think you look for is an easy way to go faster with less pain, which is technique.

I don't think it's really possible to NOT seek out technique improvement when faced with the daunting challenge of suffering day in day out with 4-5k workouts with intensity. I know after I tried that just for a few weeks, I was looking up every video and book and forum post to make life easier from the suffering I was taking.

That's exactly what several coaches told me once I was under 2:00/100. 'JUST SWIM MORE.' I'm pretty sure they're right. It ain't about some magic technique fix - there are technique issues, but you're not going to technique train your way into it.

I know running is different, but the analogy is relevant - you don't learn to run with the gait of a Kenyan or 2:0x marathoner by doing leg drills. If you don't have the physical ability to run that fast, you'll never look like that. This gets especially obvious when comparing slow out of shape runners to the good ones - it ain't just about the technique. While swimming is absolutely way more technique dependent, you ain't getting to 1:10 by swimmiin' easy.

I haven't scanned this entire thread but perhaps the disclaimer that this applies to triathlon swimming should be stuck here. When you look to the pool most everything there is flawless. You can get away with much less in tri.

There are also outliers to this. Those who have swum their entire lives can hop into a session after months or years out of the water and still lead their lane. Perhaps such a situation occurs only in vastly superior technique situations. I think you and I might have a little knowledge about that ;)

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
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"Don't you have an article somewhere about how minimum fitness is necessary for good technique?"

thank you for remembering. it was originally written in 2004, and republished a couple of years ago after we changed our architecture. it's called the high cost of good form.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

TO:...For example doing 1:20 100's with the "fist" drill to work on feeling the drag through the forearm) ......PLEeeaase......Com on, how many triathletels do you honestly know that can swim 1:20's with a fist........Those fish are working on fitness like that, but.......most triathletes do drills of 25 yrds on 40 seconds with rest so no fitness

You're now reminding me of the childhood days when my sister and I swam at a team about a half hour drive from home. She was with the junior group, and I was with the senior group that practiced afterward, and we were at pool deck for each others' practices because it made sense for Mom to only make the drive to the pool once. So I'd be hanging around, and one day coach was like, 'Hey you want to help out?' and he walked me over to the pull buoy cage and told me I could start throwing buoys at my sister if I caught her breathing between the flags on the set. Ah good times, and no, she didn't breathe between the flags at all on freestyle that practice.

I'm also not much for drills during a practice. What works better for me is to think of a couple of points of emphasis for a practice and tell myself 'You know how you tend to wiggle your hand on the catch while you're breathing when you get tired? DON'T DO THAT THIS SET!' and I know that if I get rid of the wiggle, I'm gonna get an extra 2 seconds of very nice rest per hundred on the main set. Course that requires a certain level of body awareness that came from a couple million yards/meters in the water.

>.....most triathletes do drills of 25 yrds on 40 seconds with rest so no fitness

Really- for the bulk of a session? That's jacked up. In that case, I'll will step out of the way and let Paulo, Sutton, and Rappstar beat on them with 140-character Tweets of Truth.

I Agree .... You get measurably faster in the water by swimming 2-4 times per week where 50-75% of the yardage is spent on technique. You do that for 2 months or 2 years until you get 90% of "as good as you are ever going to get" on technique. Some people can improve a lot and just need the patience to persevere. Some will only improve technique a small bit .... for many reasons: like the wrong coach or swim program, impatience, heredity or the delusion that all their bad technique needs is a bit of fitness to knock a minute off that IM swim.

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Such a Bad Runner

Curious on your thoughts on the below as a corroboration to the volume idea?

Something that isn't being mentioned here is the impact of upping swim volume on the other two disciplines.

Last year I upped my volume from 8-9k yards a week to 15-20k, and while I didn't see as much time improvement in teh swim as I would have liked, I felt better way further into the race on the bike and the run. I attribute this not only to natural progression and the work I did on the bike and run, but also to a better swim base relative to past years.

This fall I was injured and not able to run and bike as much, and had planned to do a big swim block anyway, which I feel has gone very well, and my pool times are finally coming down. Now that I am starting back biking and running I find that my base fitness in these areas is still surprisingly high for having had a layoff, I have to attribute some of that to the aerobic base I built swimming hard and often.

Agree with what you and others have said that someone who is swimming 2 min per 100 might want to spend a little more time drilling, but if this drill time is being spent effectively then it shouldn't (only guessing here) take too long before a person is able to start phasing in intensity/ volume. I love the Sutto article and its emphasis on toys and wetsuit specific swimming because it finally talks about a clear path to improvement that is similar to how to get better in the other two sports, I'm very tired of thinking of swimming as an enigma that can only be solved with a guru swim coach and a feel for the water that gets built doing a bunch of things that I will never actually do in a race.

Now Sutton basically says that. He has many swimmers who have "bad" technique, but they pull the water and are fast in spite of looks/technique. And really, I run with a guy who is a plodder, doesn't look like a runner, but has sub 30 and sub 1:06 10k/half mary PR's. You look at him and think you could beat him. And you just can't...too many miles, too experienced. A fast swimmer with bad form is, I would bet, more efficient than a slow swimmer with "perfect" technique, because of fitness.

The more I read some of the things the experts are saying, the more it makes sense to me. I am not trying to become a good 100m swimmer, but get out of the water fresher and faster. And really, if the swimmers in my pool think it looks ugly but I'm improving, both efficiency (due to fitness) and speed, I think most triathletes would take that.

Brent

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As a kid during the summer we regularly swam 10K/day (doubles) (50-60K/week) and our coaches were CONSTANTLY drilling us on technique, dropped elbows, counting flags, tight turns, breathing patterns, etc. I was one of the frequent barfers during hard sets so I'd say we were going hard enough. We did dry land 1x day also. We did specific drill work sets also.

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Plenty of people can be fast despite bad technique. But that's just it. They're doing it despite the technique. It's silly to worry about just volume or just form to the detriment of the other. Both are limiters. As you travel farther and farther up the speed hierarchy in swimming or running, you find fewer and fewer of those bad-form outliers. At some point no matter what sort of engine you've developed bad form becomes a limiter. Go to a Division 1 college track meet and you can find running forms all over the map. But go to a world class track meet some time and the form consistency is pretty startling. There's a reason for that.

I've let my own swim fitness stay about the same for the past 6 years because I'm ismply not willing to put the time in to do much more than 4,000 - 6,000 yards a week. I'd rather ride or run. But though my swim fitness hasn't improved, my swim times in this year have , because it's only in that time I've really started to pay attention to form.

Granted, I'm at the low-hanging-fruit end of the spectrum in swimming. I don't have a swimming background. I'm sure I could have made some improvements by doing 8 or 10 or 12k yards a week. But I am in the same predicament on the bike and figured (correctly) that the extra training time was better spent there. I might take a season and really make a commitment to swimming volume. But I can't deny how important it has been for me to improve my form. I think I'll get a much better bang-for-the-buck now, with better form, when I actually DO increase my swim volume.

As a kid during the summer we regularly swam 10K/day (doubles) (50-60K/week) and our coaches were CONSTANTLY drilling us on technique, dropped elbows, counting flags, tight turns, breathing patterns, etc.//

You have to separate what you did as a swimmer and what most do as masters tri swimmers. Sure if you are doing 60k a week, you can do a lot of drill type stuff. But what if you only get to do 14k a week? What are you going to chop out? I think what these guys are saying is that if you have limited time and mileage to do, then you have to do it mostly all hard. And if you have form issues, put on the toys that mostly correct those flaws, and keep hammering. It has always seemed funny to me that many good swimmers are so anti toys. I know where it comes from though, toys make most people faster, and there is a built in hatred for those folks that use the toys. Swimmers had the same feelings when wetsuits were allowed too. Cyclists had the same feeling when the 1st aero bars were shoved down their throats. People hate change, especially when it makes others faster than you. Sutton may not be very literate or have a good bedside manor, but he is right for the most part. If you are a tri swimmer that is in the hour+/- range and have only a few hours a week to swim, put on the gear and hammer out big sets. that will be your biggest bang for the buck for tri/wetsuit swimming. If you form is really good, then just do the hammer sets without the toys, same result.

I was/am one of those that pull a lot in workout, along with Dave Scott and dozens of other top swimmer triathletes i have swam with over the years. Not only does it not hamper me, it allowed me to swim with the lead group every year in hawaii, a group that would swim circles around me in just plain pool swimming. Even now in my advanced age, doing big pull sets helps me hang with many lead groups still. Dave was also never a super fast pool swimmer, but never got dropped in tri swims with guys faster than he was. I believe it is a power issue for some, and others it just plain corrects their flaws and enables them to workout like they are going to swim in the race.

This is always my issue with the whole swimming thing. You can bust your ass for an entire year (or even two) to get an improvement of :30/100meters, so a time savings of 7.5 minutes in an Oly distance race or even up to 20 minutes in an Ironman if you can keep your new technique smooth for an entire 4000 meters. If you can improve your cycling by 2 mph and your run by :30/mile then you gain over 40 minutes in an Ironman. Obviously if you combine all three you're laughing - but I think that time invested on the bike and the run is much better spent when you think about spending 6-8 hours a week in a pool as opposed to biking and running during that time. Just my .02.

Except for a lot (especially us older guys) we get the fitness beneits in the pool but not the injuries of those extra hrs running biking. Fitness gained in the pool I believe is aften overlooked. Being in my 50's I can get some pretty good threshold work down in the pool, which I simply cannot do as much on the bike and run do to recovery

This is very much dependent on who you are speaking to....

gaining 2mph on the bike from 15-17 is not hard....going from 23-25 is monumental....same for the run...going from 9:00 to 8:30 is not that tough....going from 6:30 to 6:00 is incredibly hard. So what if your biking at 23 and running at 6:30 and swimming at 1:45/100yards....I would say your best bet for time is gaining swim fitness.

Plus, once you gain that awareness and fitness in the pool, it comes back quickly and sticks with you longer.

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If you can improve your cycling by 2 mph and your run by :30/mile then you gain over 40 minutes in an Ironman//

This is always a strawman. Go get your 2mph and ;30 seconds, then do your swim. The order is not that important, and once you have gotten the low hanging fruit, your argument is done. And that does not even include the time swimming faster makes your bike and run also faster.

it is simple you can't swim 30km with bad technique... thats it. As you work on your fitness you ll get much better feel for water

Plus, once you gain that awareness and fitness in the pool, it comes back quickly and sticks with you longer.

That's why a large investment in time, and volume in any and all three sports, often through individual focus blocks is never a bad thing. If done right and well, it's not something that just disappears, ounce you cut back - it stays with you a long time. This is particularly so with swimming and cycling - less so with running.

This is why many athletes should worry less about the details and just get out there and do it.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

TO:....If I am doing my math correctly (1 mile = 1650) that is close to a 23 minute drop
Yeah your math is incorrect,,,you saved more time, a mile is 1760yrds......A pool mile (1650) is not a mile

monty wrote:

I think what these guys are saying is that if you have limited time and mileage to do, then you have to do it mostly all hard.

A wise man once said (and probably continues to say):

You've gotta swim fast to swim fast.

"Technique goes a long way in swimming, but it's nothing without fitness. Working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true."


WOW that is heavy,makes me want to go to my study and read some Kiekegaard.

I'm amazed at how often part in bold gets overlooked. Swimming makes you a better (triathlon) cyclist, just as cycling makes you a better (triathlon) runner. It's not only about the time you save in the water. It's about starting the bike fresh as well.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

...and you (or the poster you were replying to) also need to separate out what you did as a kid and what you do when you are 20, 30, 40 something and learning to swim for the first time. Technique work for kids in swim club is great, both because they are swimming so much and because they are physical sponges.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Plus, once you gain that awareness and fitness in the pool, it comes back quickly and sticks with you longer.

Word.

I could go from zero swim fitness (today) to just under 1:06 IM swim time in about 8 weeks on 7000m per week. 1:06 isn't really fast, but it is as fast as I ever care to be. The reason is that's my plateau. I'll never swim faster than that without a big increase in weekly swim time (3 hours) for many, many weeks that might net me a minute or so. I could spend that time running for much bigger gains. I've had really good swim coaching (Hat Tip: Desert Dude) so it all comes back naturally as you suggest. There are just certain things I need to remember to do as I was taught.

Those 'things' I call executing proper form......maybe it's called technique but I swim sets until my form falls apart and then I start over. When my form is good I'm at 1:35 @100 consistently.

Paulo makes great sense with sage advice. I also think triathlon swimmers need to be aware of what their best potential is and instead of chasing 20K per week for no reason/purpose, have a coach who says "this is your best potential time for 1500/1.2/2.4 on x amount of yards per week.......and doubling those yards is a false economy....time better spent running or biking."

I also swim exclusively with a pull buoy

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**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**

.....what happens when it is no wetsuit swim? swimming with pullboy is so much easier

In fresh water I would probably sink in anything longer than 1.2mi. I find salt water to have buoyancy that mimics a pull buoy so no issues there sans wetsuit.

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**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**

I'm amazed at how often part in bold gets overlooked. Swimming makes you a better (triathlon) cyclist, just as cycling makes you a better (triathlon) runner. It's not only about the time you save in the water. It's about starting the bike fresh as well.

People love to put stuff in silos of various kinds, but don't realize it's all interconnected!

Having stood at the swim exit of many Ironman races and watched thousands of triathletes over the years, I can honestly say that for more than a few triathletes the IM swim has absolutely hammered them. You can tell by the drawn look on the face, lack of spring in the step and the general body language as they stagger out of the water. Not a great way to start a very long day! They are already behind the eight-ball!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

those people should learn to practice a long swim/long bike brick rather than have the race itself teach the lesson

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**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**

If people had the logical foresight to do such a workout, they would clearly have the same logical capability to understand the basic message of this thread. The reason there are so many people who don't get what is in the is thread is the exact same reason that people rarely - if ever - even consider practicing a swim->bike brick.

The swim->bike brick is probably THE most under-appreciated workout in the sport.

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It's also probably the most administratively difficult workout from a logistics standpoint. Probably why it's rarely utilized.

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A really fast transition version? Yes. Though if you ask if you can bring a trainer on deck, it's amazing how many places will say yes, simply because they are so dumbfounded they can't think of a reason to say no.

BUT, to effectively do a swim->bike workout with a transition on the order of 5-ish minutes, which is a LOT faster than most people's IM transitions, is not really all that difficult. Finish your set, no cool down, get out, dry off, no shower, promptly change, grab your bike out of the back of your car, ride.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

 
Or just do it outside...

http://www.youtube.com/...&feature=related

Depending on where you live/swim....ride bike to pool....swim, get out of the water (towel off if cold), go unlock bike, ride home/to work. Logistically, it is a very easy workout to pull off if you have a small backpack for the pool stuff.

I'm actually amazed by how few people chose to ride to swimming vs driving.

If your ride is under 20K, it's a great way to log some extra miles, with minimal additional time penalty and good way to practice the specificity for racing.

Same thing can be done for a weekend long ride...ride to pool/open water, swim, get on the bike and do the long ride. It's not really that difficult logistically if you are not too worried about locking up your high end tri bike....maybe I am lucky, but in 27 years of doing this, I've never had my bike or any component ripped off (I've done this in my own city and in countless foreign cities on three continents)....anyway, bikes are replaceable....my time is not. I only get so many ticks on earth and would rather spend it on a bike than in a car :-). Give it a whirl!

Agree with you but here are my limiting factors for not riding to my swim:

1) I swim early. Before the buttcrack of dawn. Which means riding in the dark. In the cold. Which I'd gladly do for a 'real' bike workout, but for as only a warmup prelude to a swim, totally sux.

2) You have deal with the logistics of carrying your bike and swim gear with you on the workouts. Not a dealbreaker, but gets annoying.

3) I swim right before work and shower there before driving over to work in the nick of time. Can't do that on a bike - would get too sweaty riding from the pool to work.

4) Bike is too slow to get to noontime swim (40 min swim in a 60 minute lunch break, including travel and prep time.)

For those like me who have to cram the swimming in wherever possible, even the few minutes saved on a car is pretty important. I found that at one of my work locations, it was clearly worth it to drive my car an incredibly pathetic 0.4 miles to the pool (yes, you can SEE the pool from my work window it's so close) as the 4 measly minutes I saved each way vs to the walking (can't just change at work and jog over - not professional for what I do) was crucial in cramming that workout into the 60 minute allotted lunch break.

Two different activities. Weightlifting, distance running, swimming, speed skating, cycling, sprinting......all will require different balances of technique training vs fitness training.

Its always about balance and if you sit too far to one end of the spectrum you will need to do less of one and more of the other and it will vary based on your goals and your ability.

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while a good idea, logistically it can be a bit of challenge, an alternative is to do a race

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x2...and for me surf swimming is making me much stronger overall.

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Then Soren may want his name spelled right ;>)
S�ren Aabye Kierkegaard

Just out of curiosity, Steve, where do you think Simon got that?

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Based upon my n=1 two years back in the sport, year 1 was totally solo swimming, almost all paddles and pull bouy. Last year was more masters swimming and less pull bouy. To be honest, I think my swim was not as strong as the previous year, meaning while I was slightly faster, I didn't finish swims as fresh. This thread, Sutton's and Paulo's comments and those of Jordan have me rethinking my swim. I think that technique wise I am ok, never perfect, but if swimming with the toys helps the end game, maybe I should get back on it.

Interesting thread for sure don't you think? :)

Brent

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duh... from you

i mean, after all, yer the asian guy ;) so of course you have all the great quotes. Can i rub your belly? Or after you've ridden across canada.... your abs!!! :)

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Bella was definitely a 2:00+ sub swimmer initially. I believe she plied her trade with Darren Smith in the Scotland team before eventually moving to Brett Sutton... Two coaches who share pretty similar views.

have nothing to add regarding swimming.

But I want to thank you for this thread. It's been great reading- some great lines & info to take from it.
Very educational @ 4am.

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I posted a link to an article written by a long time swim coach (& sub 44 IM swimmer), stating exactly this. It didn't go down too well on here....

I love it how people, the majority who wouldn't know how to fix a swim stroke if someone gave them to it in a package gift wrapped enjoy arguing about stuff like this.



I fixed it for you.

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I love it how people, who also wouldn't know how to fix a swim stroke, chime in and imply heavily that they do.

Agreed, that this may not be logistically viable in some cases. I tend to apply this approach in the "riding season" when there is no snow, and try to pick the swim times where I can ride to the pool or in the case of open water ride to open water. The issue of having to haul around either work equipment to the pool/open water and the pool equipment to work is also an issue. For the pool swims, I can haul work stuff there. For the open water swims, not possible. On the other hand, open water swimming is a 16 min ride from home, so if I wake up early enough, I can ride to the swim, ride home, drop off swim gear and then ride to work. Again, I understand all of this may not be possible in many communities, but in mine where it is possible, I see very few people taking advantage of this opporutunity.

I see very few people taking advantage of this opportunity.

Dev,

Are you making fun of the modern triathlete with their locked down, must do, get the numbers, hyper-proprietary, no variation training schedules? ;-)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

No, hopefully it was not interpreted that way. I'm just suggesting that the swim-bike brick is logistically a viable workout if the bike is used as part of the transportation process. Otherwise, logistically, the swim-bike brick does become difficult if it involves having to a load a bike inside a car to get to the pool. To some degree, at least in the summer, it seems like a bit of wasted opportunity to place a bike inside (or on top of a car) for local trips. But as I said, I'm probably fortunate to live in a city where you can ride everywhere. Here is town, there are still lots of triathletes, complaining they have no time to train, while their bikes sit inside their cars as they drive 20 min each way to the start of bike workouts. In that 40 minutes of driving time, the guy who rode there, got an extra 60 minutes of trainging done.

Got a link? I'd be interested to read it.

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On the other hand, open water swimming is a 16 min ride from home, so if I wake up early enough, I can ride to the swim, ride home, drop off swim gear and then ride to work. Again, I understand all of this may not be possible in many communities, but in mine where it is possible, I see very few people taking advantage of this opporutunity.

_____

Do you have a change of clothes at work? Or do you carry clothes in like a bag or something. I dont work in a suit and tie job, but always wondered about the difficulty in that situation with riding a bike to work (ie for a workout or simply commute style riding). I've got to think for someone's job where they have to wear a suit and tie, doing a swim workout and then biking to work just wont cut it, unless there is a facility to shower/change/prepare for work.

ETA: I'm not trying to make excuses for why more people dont commute to work, more or less trying to understand the dynamics that actually allow you to pull it off. For some, I've got to guess without proper changing facilities, it's just not kousher (sp) to bike-swim workout-bike to work. Of course if someone is the boss man of their company, they can basically do whatever they want.

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I've brought my bike to OWS plenty of times and done a swim / bike brick. I've also ridden to an OWS w/ a backpack, done my swim and ridden back home. Both work well and are pretty easy logistically.

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Generally, we see plateaus broken through in a somewhat significant manner before we see the methods used to achieve that breakthrough being heralded as the best and perhaps only way to do so.

In the recent past you self described yourself at a swimming plateau. In this thread you seem quite certain that your methods are the only good ones. Usually those two things don't go together. Can you elaborate?

Fun thread. I agree with Paulo's tweet. I do find it funny when people suggest spending time swimming only creates small gains on time while ignoring the massive gains in aerobic fitness you also derive.

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You are correct, you will definitely get big gains from getting aerobic swim fitness. But the problem is, even those gains won't be anywhere near big enough to overcome the monumental drag created by trying to move faster through the water with a bad body position and technique.

Even lance armstrong on meds wouldn't be able to win a local amateur bike race if he had to ride around with an 8 foot parachute behind his bike. It doesn't matter what kind of massive aerobic fitness he has, it just won't happen. That's exactly what happens in the water with bad technique. And just piling on more swimming won't solve that problem.

By the way, when I say, technique, it is not doing more drills or just playing around with swim toys ...

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If you are a 1:20 swimmer, then a 20 minute improvement in your time is a 25% improvement. I don't think there is a person on the board that wouldn't take a 25% improvement in any segment.

And, if you TRULY put in the time, I would think most people could chop 20-30 seconds off of their 100 pace in less than a year.

Add to that, you spend 20 less minutes thrashing around in the water, which saves energy and puts you on to the bike 20 minutes earlier than your normal group of competitors.

John

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Yes. I find it very hard to improve my swimming while also trying to improve my run and my cycling, both of which are typically more important for winning races, especially the races that I had on my schedule. I *believe* I came very close to breaking through the plateau I sat on for most of this year - Abu Dhabi being the notable exception where I had a bad swim - but I think that because of the bike-intensive nature of preparing for Abu Dhabi, I probably backed off my swimming too soon.

It's always a tough balance with three sports, and - in retrospect - I actually think that when I was tired from a lot of biking and running, I would have been better off had I done significantly more pulling and paddle work. I.e., when I look at how my swim maybe suffered - and even stalled a bit - this year, I think it's precisely because I did NOT follow the advice here. Not that I shifted to drills or any of that nonsense, but I think I was loathe to "rely" on paddles and the pull buoy and that I had worse sessions when I could have had better sessions if I'd just been willing to throw on the paddles more quickly.

That being said, I think Abu Dhabi was the only real outlier performance in the water this year, and I think I corrected the larger errors that I made leading into that race. Right now, I'm determined not to make the same mistake again, and I've started a heavier swim focus - that I will continue for longer - in hopes of actually breaking through the plateau this year. And I've made sure to use MORE paddles, more pull buoy, and ESPECIALLY more band in order to do so. So far, in just a few weeks, I've already set PBs, so it seems to be working. Now to keep the foot on the gas rather than thinking the changes are already sticky...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Forest, trees. So many want to see the forest but only look at a tree.

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Yes. I think technique work should be part of each session regardless of ability to swim 1 or 1000 laps.

Dave

That is a bit harsh....and most swims these days are essentially giant pools where most are fine - the crowds though can make things challenging and that is hard to train for/practice. Also it would be very hard for most triathletes to get rough water experience/wave experience....

Dave

That sould have been in pink. Maybe. I feel comfortable saying on average triathletes are terrible swimmers, even more so in open water. For a triathlete I'm a pretty decent swimmer but throw me in with some real swimmers and I'm a joke.

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Sure there is. Percentage improvements are irrelevant compared to total time improvements. I'm not sure if it came across clearly but he is talking about choosing between 40 minutes improvement on the bike and 20 minutes improvement on the swim. I'm sure that 40 minutes improvement on the bike is closer to 5-10 %, not 25%, but who cares? It still puts you across the line 20 minutes sooner than the guy who swam 20 minutes faster.

Obviously, this all only works if you accept his hypothetical performance improvements. Maybe he's totally wrong. But we choose to allocate our training based off what our best guess is of the benefits. If he thinks he can get a bigger total gain by cycling those extra hours instead of swimming, then it is only logical for him to choose the cycling. You might convince him otherwise, but not, I think, by talking about percentages.

That's short sighted short term thinking.

John

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I rarely chime in on any slowtwitch threads, but figured I'd put my two cents in on this one, especially given Paulo has been coaching my wife and I for the past year.

The biggest change (not the only) working with Paulo was the change he made to our swim volume. Adding over 10K per week to our avg week. Without a doubt - as in 100% confident here - swimming this much on a regular basis has improved our abilities as triathletes more than we thought possible. The visible change has been in our ability to ride harder, and run faster after swimming. Yes, Paulo is also a great cycling and running coach so some changes there have helped as well, but without the ability to shake off a 3.8km swim like it never happened we would be right where we were a year ago. Personally, the changes in my bike power and my run splits have been huge.

Like Jordan, and I'm sure Paulo, is trying to get across, swimming a lot is going to allow you to maintain your best technique throughout the swim and finish off the TRIATHLON much better. It's not going to somehow turn you into a Michael Phelps, perfect technique, kind of swimmer. As Jordan said earlier, most triathlete are just trying to be less crappy in the water...and increased swim fitness will indeed make you less crappy.

No, it's just plain practical thinking. Get the low-hanging fruit first. Then go for the smaller gains. Taking that approach doesn't mean I'll never really push the swim. If I get my 40 minutes on the bike this year, I can go for 20 minutes in the swim NEXT year.

How much faster can your run get??? Dude your fast, I think your gained would be a bike/ swim focus. Maybe your bro can help you with the swim :0)

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This video shows you the difference fitness make. Both have good technique, one is a good skier the other a world class skier.

http://svtplay.se/...far_karlsson_pa_fall

The skier on the left needs fitness, not drills ;-)

Actually my running is getting slower (except maybe for the marathon) because my best running days were in my 20s and 30s. Part of the reason why I took up triathlon a few years ago and like it is that I finally have endurance sports I can actually get better at! :-)

Sometimes I have to wear a suit at work, usually not. Just dress pants and dress shirts. I keep extra clothing at work and we have a shower facility. I actually won't take a job at a company that does not have a shower facility no matter how much it pays. The quality of life impact associated with not being able to conveniently access workouts can't be compensated with $$$ in my value system (at least any of the jobs that I'd be kind of qualified for can't pay enough to offset having to miss workouts). I miss enough workouts on business travel that I really don't want to have to deal with having to miss them at home :-)

Dev

Trevor,

Welcome aboard. Don't be a stranger.

Now I am confused.

Wasn't there a coaching group on here recently advocating, no swimming for triathletes! ;-)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Wasn't there a coaching group on here recently talking about doing no swimming for triathletes! ;-)

_______________________

oh jesus, don't start......

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@rhyspencer

Need more popcorn....

That's short sighted short term thinking.

John[/quote]
If you only had limited time to devote to training, where would you allocate your hours? Swimming often involves things like specific times (if in masters), travel, changing, etc. I can pick up my bike and/or run out my front door. 2 workouts a week = probably another 1.5 hours training time if I only swim 2 times instead of 4. I don't think that any plan is short sighted - it is what works for the individual athlete. Also, many of the commenters are acting like we all are looking to finish an Ironman in under 10 hours. If you don't care about that, then does the opinion change?

Fleck =

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What people seem to miss is that for those of us who aren't pros, triathlon is about fitness and lifestyle as much as it's about race results. If you're an MOP triathlete what's the difference between BOMOP and MOMOP and FOMOP? Not really much in the grand scheme of things. You might care about your own improvement (and you should!) but not many other people likely do.

If you're a single sport athlete such as a cyclist and swim to cross-train, then you don't have any real reason to put huge amounts of effort into swimming. What you're looking for is a low-impact lung-blaster workout that you can do on recovery days.

But if you're a TRIATHLETE, swimming is part of the craft and improving your swimming should be worked on for the simple reason that being a good triathlete is more than just placings or finishing times. In my view, someone who isn't committed to all 3 segments of triathlon isn't really as 'good' a triathlete as someone who views the sport as a whole, with 3 equally important phases, regardless of if they're actually fast or slow in races.

Thanks for the info Brandon!

Swimming is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've felt on the verge of a breakthrough for years, but it's never come.

Probably time to not worry so much about perfect technique like the best pool swimmers, and just focus on pulling lots of water and getting in tons of time in the pool.

I actually like swimming so this shouldn't be too hard. Especially love swimming with paddles and pull buoy so I look forward to putting this idea to the test.

Is a lot of your swimming with paddles and pull bouy?

Was this quite different from what you guys were doing before?


Really enjoy reading your blog btw!

I don't know who you're hanging around with but most of the triathletes I know who train seriously do it so that they can race faster. Back of packers, middle of packers and front of packers. They want to go faster. It's not "craft". They're not method actors. It's a sport. They want to race faster than the other guy, or faster than themselves the last time they did it. They do view the sport as a whole. They look at the total combined finishing time.

Yeah, a lot of it is with paddles/pull buoy and band. I don't use big paddles. Also a lot of band only, which I've finally starting getting better at. Not much in the way of pull buoy only during the actual workout, but I always warm up with one. Seems to me whenever Paulo is on deck he hides my pull buoy -unless it's a specific paddle/pull/band set. :) He changes little things now and again so it's hard to say that that's what happens all year. Good approximation though.

Cheers,

Trevor
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"Wasn't there a coaching group on here recently advocating, no swimming for triathletes! ;-)"

I assume you are talking about Endurance Nation, in which case they have never advocated no swimming for triathletes. Of course, a lot of people only hear what they want to hear and are happy to distort what they say.

People in cults have no sense of humor.

Hey, that's my former BBQ coach! Here you see a uniquely American addition to the French culinary repertoire: BBQ sauce - the 6th mother sauce.

<Edited to add>: one poor sap asked if BBQ sauce didn't simply follow from tomato sauce? His question was answered with a bison rib to the head. Lesson: Don't mess with the pit master!

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No, it doesn't change at all. I've always been of the opinion that an athlete should work to be better than they were the previous year. Maybe that's going from a 16:30 to a 15:30, or simply maintaining the level that they had against advancing age.

If you note, however, that I am advocating much of this in the off season, or yes, even sacrificing a part of a season with it. What's wrong with that? That's why I say that the argument "Well, I only have x hours" is short term, short sighted thinking.

So what if next season is shot? Or to counter the argument "Well, I can gain 40 minutes by focusing on the bike, so why focus on swimming where I only get 20 minutes", here's a radical thought. Spend two years, and get both. Spend a third year and get the gains in the run as well. Yes, you will lose a bit of what you gain when you are not focusing on a specific segment, but you will still be way ahead of where you were when you started.

I stand by my statement, that those kinds of arguments are short term, short sighted thinking.

John

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I don't think anyone disagrees with you on this. We're just saying that it makes a whole lot more sense to go for the 40 minutes the first year and the 20 minutes the second. Not sure how that order is short-sighted while the reverse is not.

Yeah, and I think that's shortsighted for a couple reasons. One, it's about the journey - you can figure out for yourself what this means to you. Two, as Rappstar, T-Wurt and others have very eloquently explained already, being a better swimmer makes you a better triathlete, ESPECIALLY in ironman.

I have figured it out. If I train easily, casually - then that's mostly for the journey. But if I'm dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and doing swim interval workouts late at night and blowing $500 for an entry fee -- it's no longer just for the journey. That's for the result. That's for racing.



Better = faster. At least in every race I've ever done. Not faster in just the swim. Faster at the end of the race. They don't hand out the awards at T1. Maybe you have some other definition of better but that's mine. I don't think I'm alone in that regard.

Now we might disagree on how exactly to allocate our training to get to that finish line faster and that's fine. But I'm not doing this so I can wax philosophical about my "craft".

Just a data point. It has been my personal experience (and the Mrs.-Tex) that when your running and cycling, especially your running, are going well...it is tough to have the swim feeling great. The Rockstar swim sessions when running like Simon...or as close as I'll ever get...seem to be much fewer. It's also been that way with many of the age groupers that I've worked with.

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I think "technique" is a broad term. I break it down into roughly two flavors, probably equally broad and missing some parts :-)

1. Body position: the stuff associated with creating a streamlined, hydrodynamic shape in the water, everything contained in the small tube of your body, etc.
   
2. Propulsion: the stuff associated with generally grabbing more water.
   

Body Position:

• Very low fitness cost to make these improvements. That is, body position is improved by making essentially "free" changes to head position, body alignment, a more streamlined kick (legs not flailing outside of the tube of your body, etc), and more.
  
• This is the "learning how to play a musical instrument" side of swimming: small, and large, technique breakthroughs achieved with focused drill work or 1:1 coaching from a technique coach can achieve huge gains on race day.
• In my experience, and I'm admittedly swagging these numbers, most swimmers swimming slower than about a 1:15-20 IM swim still have gains to be made from improving the technique of body position. That is, if you're swimming a 1:35, for example, you have ~15-20' to be gained by simply turning your barge into a speedboat hull. Doing so should be approached much like learning to play a musical instrument until about 12-14wks out from your goal race, at which you shift your focus over to fitness swimming so you can sustain your new technique for the distance of your race.
  

Propulsive swimming:

• As your body position improves (barge --> speedboat) and you become a faster swimmer, becoming faster still becomes more about better applying your fitness to the water...generally, grabbing more water. This is the technique of the pull, catch, hand position, etc.
• Absolute swim time gains on race day become smaller and smaller, requiring a greater and greater time/fitness/hard work investment.
• That said, in my experience, swimmers between about 1:08-12 can usually get a quick 4-6' swim split pop from finding one small technique tip that just clicks for them. But below about 1:05-6...it's definitely about putting in the work. The sub 1:00 learned-to-swim-as-an-adult triathlete is very, very rare and usually requires a massive time and effort investment.
  

As has been noted, many people in this thread do the math on the time invested vs the gain on race day. Many people make their own time value assessment and decide where they should spend their time, given the other priorities in their lives. For example, a 40hr work week father of 3 does the math on the time investment required to go from 1:15 to 1:10 and makes a decision. Someone else with different considerations makes a different decision.

My general guidance is:

• If you are slower than about a 1:15-20 IM swim, swimming faster for you is generally more about body position and less about fitness, ie, the power needed to grab more water. You should be doing a lot of body position drills until about 12-14wks out from your race, then transition to more fitness-swimming.
  
• If you're faster than about 1:15-20, swimming faster is becoming more about grabbing more water and the fitness/power associated with that.
  
• Sub ~1:10...future gains will be smaller and harder to achieve.
• In my opinion, anyone with limited time resources should consider this above to decide how to best allocate those resources: how/when/what flavor of swimming should I invest in at different times of the year? The answer is individual and is a function of current swim ability, your personal time constraints, race day goals, etc.
  

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Rich Strauss
Endurance Nation Ironman 2013 and 2014 World Champion TriClub, Div I
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Having never swam as a kid other than lesson and finishing them at 12 years old I never swam until I was an adult. I was able to get my Ironman swim times down to 1:07 and 1:08 by swimming three days a week (10,000 meters max). I find this thread interesting and when I get back in the pool next week, I am planning to try the paddle/band/pull bouys.

I have been able to have access to some great swim coaches and when I first started swimming in Victoria my swim coach for masters was Neil Harvey and Surge Score. I think Rapp know at least Neil and his methods fairly well. They were able to really help out from the deck. I also took part in a triathlon training camp where Neil took video of my swim stroke under the water which again gave me some insight. These were some keys in getting me down to 1:07ish with not a lot of time in the pool.

It would be good to get back into the pool and focus on the paddle/band to see if this would help a bit.

Thanks Rich. Nice articulate breakdown of the "entire picture" and how time management factors in.

To Joe, I don't think that racing is simply about racing faster, be it faster than yourself, or faster than your competition, even if it involves dropping a lot of money on entry fees and flights. At one point in my life, that's what racing was primarily about. Now, racing is more of a celebration of being able to participate in sport. It's an outcome of having the physical and financial means and relationship support to play these games.

At work, I work with a bunch of guys with a completely different set of personal values from myself. We share common professional goals with respect to beating the competiton, getting more market share and jacking up revenue for our shareholders....all good in the corporate world, but that's not what makes me tick. When I go to races, I get to hang out with a bunch of guys who have very similar values.

I remember going to IMC in 1991, and arriving in Penticton and thinking....."WOW.....1200 guys and girls from all over the world living the same life as me. This is ultra cool!!!"

So now, when I go to races, its about hanging out with a bunch of guys who share similar values. I've made great friendships through sport and seen a lot of the world. Racing fast is cool....but simply being able to hop on a plane and go somewhere interesting and hang out with other athletes is really what is the most exciting part of the sport (for me).....and daily training is probably the most exciting part.

So quite often, doing what will optimize results is not as important for me as just having fun in the sport. I refuse to do any workout that is really inconvenient and which I am not deriving fun from in the same of speed optimization....it's not that important.

If I had an endless pool, I'd swim a ton more than I do now. When I am at home, making it to the pool with my work and family committments is a big endeavor. I can get lot more done just training out my front door with no commute time. Quite often I'll just skip swimming and go for a roller ski because I can basically do that with no overhead out my front door and I'm not limited by pool times...and I get great upper body aerobic work. I can go from XC skiing or roller skiing to swimming within 1 min of my peak half IM swim times in 3-4 weeks (did that last year at Texas 70.3 after a winter of no swimming). For me, it's about being time efficient, and I realize it is not optimal, to really get the best race times....but its not about the best race times....it's more about lifestyle.

All that to say, that even though I am in age group podium contention at local/regional races, I'm not going to horribly inconvenience myself in the name of speed gains. Just participating in the sport without burning out is waaaay more important and if that means finishing a few spots back, then that's fine.

Dev

'Dat 'cause you OLD!!!

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Who are you and what did you do with Dev?


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Hmmm, band.... I literally drown should i ever put that thing on.

#helplifeguard

Paddles by themselves however......

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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Clearly someone needs to learn how to swim... Have you heard of Total Immersion?

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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Everytime I swim with a band, I am thankful that my college coach never made us use one.

:-)

Ricky Ponting and the boys seemed to do OK in Melbourne the past 4 days....the cool thing is in triathlon you can play on the same field as Craig Alexander, but I can't play on the same field as Ponting. Both are Aussie superstars in their own sports, but I get to play in Craig's sport. It's not all about speed. I get to spend time with really cool people as a result of being in this sport. That's more important then a few minutes here and there.

Dev,

Is that you putting down, yet again modern day triathletes and all this obsession with the minutiae of training, the charts, the programs, the graphs the numbers, the details, the lactate testing etc . .? ;-)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

My roommate (also a life long swimmer and professional) has a good theory as to why swimmer swimmers CANNOT swim with the band. Most every swimmer i've met despises it with supreme hatred.

Her theory:

Life long swimmers are used to unconsciously using their core to activate the torso rotation of the stroke. For "us" the stroke is driven from the core. Everything about the stroke emanates out from this. With the addition of the band you shut off the core's ability to effectively engage and rotate the body... we can't press the "t" and float. Same thing happens to me when i cramp i have to alter my stroke and everything goes to hell in a handbasket quickly.


The band is a torture device.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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Oh I totally agree with you Dev and have been saying so here for the last few years.As a result of my believing that this sport was more about cool places to compete in and the cool people I meet over finding the best gear and gadjets,any chance of being accepted at the ST cool kids table was removed.At least I know Fleck would come and visit me for a couple of minutes at the castaways table.

Yeah Ricky saved his job during the First Test but bummer about Sachin not getting his 100th/100 in Melbourne.Hope he gets it during this tour..

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Sounds complicated. Perhaps I should start with dog paddle?

I haven't swum consistently in over two years. Do you think I can swim a whole length without hanging on the lane line?

Can i have your biathlon gun please?

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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I think on ST you have the gadget crowd and the lifestyle crowd, with some amount of overlap. I think what you'll find is that the lifer's grow past the gadgets because we know that gadgets won't come with us to our funerals, but the cool people we meet, we'll either go to their funerals or they will come to ours...along the way, we'll share some good times, while trying to beat the crap out of each other (where the odd gadget might come into play).

Yes, the sport is definitely about the people and places. The competition is what brings us together, and of course, it also gives us a source of motivation to get the most out of ourselves.

As for the tour going on in Australia, the 100th century would have been pretty cool, but will have to wait....I'm in a bit of a wasteland of sporting coverage here in Canada where the media seems to be in their yearly over emphasis on a tournament that no one else in the world cares about (World Junior Ice Hockey Championships), so its whatever I can get on the web....at least we get a full lineup of network TV coverage of the Dec 31st Barclay's Premier League matches (something the rest of the world kind of cares about).

Looks like we totally side tracked the thread, so to bring it on track, this fall, I swam a ton with paddles, because I wanted to improve my upper body conditioning for XC skiing as I was missing a lot of roller ski dryland training as a result of biz travel....today was my 4th XC ski of the year and I went from zero skiing on snow to 30K in a span of 5 days. Nice crossover between the 2 sports. Definitely sold on the value of using paddles for swim (and general upper body aerobic) conditioning.

Dev

swimmers are used to unconsciously using their core to activate the torso rotation of the stroke

This has to be true for everyone, no? Good swimmers do it better (use their core, wiseguy...for swimming), but most everyone generates propulsion from leveraging torso rotation against the fulcrum of the arm set. If bands inhibit this, what is the point of the bands?

Having worked with lots of folks on making them better swimmers I can say from observational experience that most folks do not utilize their core very effectively at all. Most folks "swim with their arms" and not with their core. If I want to go faster (short of all out sprinting) what I concentrate on is not hand speed but firstly how "hard" i'm catching with the stroke (pulling HARD) and then secondly how hard I'm engaging my torsional rotation. That is to say getting the most out of each stroke.

And swimmers TOTALLY do it better. There is far too much evidence of this at many the collegiate swimming party. Yes, there is observational and participatory evidence of this as well ;)

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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Point of the band is to force a stronger catch on the athlete.

The theory put forth by my roommate makes sense to me (it's a theory after all, nothing more than that) as when I put the band on I'm going straight to the bottom of the pool. This is a similar experience conveyed to me by other life long swimmers. As well as the happenings when I get a cramp. Take my timing device (core rotation) out of the equation and I'm dead in the water.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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This is why very accomplished swimmers are terrible at teaching adults to swim.

ass u me

much eh?

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

I think that the kick provides a counter to set the body rotation and positions the torso so it can rotate around the catch. Also, the kick floats an a$$ so it can be swimming as downhill as it can. The counter pre-sets the body rotation so I can 'explode" my torso rotation against the catch. Bands inhibit all of this. So I don't see the point of the band... except a good swimmer (rappstar) recommended the bands as a method to get faster, and a very good swimmer (you) said they are bunk. So, the question is, are they good for everyone, or only poor swimmers? Your experience seems to state that good swimmers don't benefit much from them, Jordans point to an experience that provides benefit to good swimmers.

WHOA!

To whom did I say they were bunk for!? *I* do not like them PERSONALLY.

Yes I am blending lots of me vs. coach here. It's getting muddy and I should delineate things more precisely. There is *me* and then there is *my coaching*.... they are polar opposites. I like anything that makes a new swimmer want to (need to) catch more harder better. I'm not against it (band) for what it is being promoted for here. I am personally against it because when I put one on I very well might not be coming back up!!!

About the only element of "pool swimming" that I try to get my pupils to do is naturally get their hips up. Aside from that everything I instruct is about turnover and the catch.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

I like this!

Gives me something to think about.

Yes, my tick (i dont really kick, rather just flick my ankles/shins) is a counter balance to the upper body.


I think they are good for most any triathlete. A good triathlete is one thing.... a good swimmer is an entirely different thing. Triathletes need only be good enough. The engine is all that matters along with something of a catch. The faster you go the more one must splice hairs in an effort to be perfect. The level of skill (technical form proficiency) that was beaten into us in the process of trying to make it to the olympics was far beyond that which is required of even the best triathlete swimmers.

Again, this is *me*. My athletes get a very different verse. Catch more, catch harder, turnover faster.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

And yes, you are allowed to bounce off the bottom of the pool with the band on. There are no FINA officials watching and you won't get DQ'ed. :D

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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Sorry dude, Canadians aren't allowed to arm Americans. It goes against the very laws of nature. We trade BC Bud for your guns - not the other way 'round.

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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All that sells very well and sounds right in theory. But when the gun goes off, your 1:15 swimmer does not loose 5 minutes, but 5 minutes on the swim, 10 on the bike and 20 on the run (due to a lack of swim fitness).

Send a seasoned triathlete, a 9hr guy, on an hour of cross country skating or rowing with 3mmol and see the cycling and run performance. It goes way down, because the athlete cannot recover from the activity he is not fit for.

You can do the test with a few clients (cycling trained but not skating or rowing trained but with enough technical proficiency to acutally be able to work at threshould in skating or rowing):

-) Bike an hour at TH (HR 165, Watts 280) - run 1/2 an hour at 150 hr
-) Skate or row an Hour at TH (HR 175 as a full body sport gives a higher heart rate) - run 1/2 an hour at 150 hr

If the second run is much slower (which it is for me), or feels much harder (which it does for me), the whole theory of "economics of swimming" goes the way of all economic model ...

Get as fit as you can & swim as fast as you can.

Without developing your technique, it's like riding one of these:



With technique, it's like riding one of these:


No doubt the very best cyclists could still ride the dragster pretty fast - if they put the chain on...
I wouldn't want to do an Ironman on one though.

I would much rather spend a bit of time becoming a good swimmer, rather than spend countless hours in the pool getting really fit but sucking as a swimmer.

Ever happened to anyone? Was it ever tested, that it is even possible, to train hard for 10.000 hours and stay technically poor? Most of this technique bla-bla comes from former swimmers, that developed efficient technique by doing hard work in the pool for years and now need to turn their profficiency into cash by "coaching" age groupers, that don't want to work at all.

Or has it happened the other way round, are there any 50 minute swimmers, who did TI drills and did not work intervalls day after day?

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I bet there are a hell of a lot of really fit people that could ride that cruiser bike faster than those untfit ones on the pinarello who cruise around looking pretty on the bike while doing no actual training..

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This.

You have to be intentionally swimming with poor form or willfully not aiming to swim faster than your current pace to not improve significantly after doing a lot of real, hard swimming.

While there are a lot of lifelong super-slow swimmers at every pool, pretty much all of these folks have no interest in doing gutbusting fast or hard workouts to actually improve. If you forced them into a situation where they HAD to get faster, like putting them permanently in the lane of a masters group where they had to work extremely hard to keep up, there's a 100% chance that they'd be begging for technique improvement and learning everything and anything they can about it because it hurts so bad to just suffer through these workouts.

Totally agree that ex-competitive swimmers way overhype the magic speed of technique. While I agree that technique is pretty much everything for down to 2:00/100m (give and take given genetic gifts), the AVERAGE person isn't going to be anywhere near 1:20/100 with just technique unless they had years of hard swimming in the past, or are really, really gifted in it (of which there are quite a few on this forum.)

You can indeed spent countless hours in the pool and not be a better swimmer, but all of those very same folks are NOT getting any fitter for it. They're not pushing their limits and not interested in getting into the pain threshold where improvements really happen.

"But when the gun goes off, your 1:15 swimmer does not loose 5 minutes, but 5 minutes on the swim, 10 on the bike and 20 on the run (due to a lack of swim fitness)."

You are assuming that the additional time invested in swimming would be added to the athlete's workload. In many cases (mine), any additional swimming requires a reduction in running/biking due to the time they have available.